The revolution that has swept the food industry is expanding to retail: origins matter.

With fair-trade coffee and organic fruit now standard on grocery shelves, consumers concerned with working conditions, environmental issues and outsourcing are increasingly demanding similar accountability for their T-shirts. The issue has been brought to the forefront by the garment factory collapse inBangladesh, which killed more than 800 people.

And some retailers are doing what was once unthinkable, handing over information about exactly how, and where, their products were made.

Everlane, an online boutique, last week added paragraphs to its Web site describing the factories where its products are made.

Nordstrom says it is considering adding information about clothes produced in humane working conditions.

An online boutique breaks down the number of workers involved in making each item and the cost of every component, while a textiles company intends to trumpet the fair-trade origins of its robes when Bed Bath & Beyond starts selling them this month.

And a group of major retailers and apparel companies, including some — like Nike and Walmart — with a history of controversial manufacturing practices overseas, says it is developing an index that will include labor, social and environmental measures.

Border Security Force has identified specific spots along Bangladesh and Pakistan borders used for illegal migration and human trafficking and deployed additional manpower and special surveillance equipment at these places, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday. Mapping of Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh borders is being carried out to identify the spots vulnerable to crimes like illegal migration, human trafficking and smuggling, Minister of State Home Mullappally Ramachandran said in written reply.

He said BSF has been able to map and identify 86 border posts along Pakistan and Bangladesh boundaries, which are vulnerable to illegal migration, while there are 32 spots prone to human trafficking, 57 vulnerable to smuggling of fake currencies, 55 vulnerable to smuggling of drugs and 23 spots prone to cattle smuggling.

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“It shows eight year old Munna who works in a rickshaw factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The boy earns about 500 taka (7 U.S. dollars) a month, working 10 hours a day. When production often stops due to lack of electricity, he has time to play. It is common in Bangladesh for children of poor parents to work in various hazardous and labor-intensive workplaces to support their families. Seventeen and a half percent of all children aged between 5-15 are engaged in economic activities. The average child worker earns between 400 to 700 taka per month, while an adult worker earns up to 5,000 taka per month.” One U.S. dollar equals about 70 taka.”

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Garment workers point toward the burning That’s It Sportswear factory, a Gap supplier. 29 workers died in the factory fire on December 14, 2010, many falling to their deaths from the upper floors of the building because locked stairway doors barred their escape. (c) Andrew Biraj / Reuters.

Since 2006 more than 600 garment workers have died in sweatshop factory fires while sewing clothing for giant fashion companies, like Gap, H&M, JCPenney, and Abercrombie.

Future tragic deaths could be prevented if companies like Gap would follow the lead of brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, by agreeing to a fire safety program that includes worker input, transparency, and binding commitments to protect workers.

Six months ago Gap publicly promised it would sign on to a worker safety program similar to the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein agreement. Instead this month GAP reverted to the same old public relations stunts by announcing their own, corporate-controlled, fire safety program – one that includes no legal commitments to workers, no oversight by worker organizations, and no transparency. This is yet another version of Gap saying: ‘trust us; we care about our workers’ – like the programs they had in place when 29 workers were killed at their Bangladeshi supplier in December 2010.

Join Bangladeshi and international unions and labor groups that are calling on Gap to commit to a meaningful fire safety program that will protect the lives of the company’s sweatshop workers.

Bangladeshi children are trafficked to India and Pakistan to serve as sex slaves and domestic servants. Young boys are often used as camel jockeys in the Middle East. Most of these children willingly cross this border, searching for a better life. What they most often find is a hell far worse than the world they left.

Last year, the Bangladeshi Parliament passed a landmark anti-human trafficking law. Last month, through assistance provided by USAID, the government released a national action plan to implement the law across the country, including here at Benapole.

U.S. pressure and guidance helped make the law possible, but the real work has yet to begin. Laws are just words on paper. Putting those words into direct action is where it counts. I can already see some progress. Right at the border, posters warn travelers about human trafficking and explain what to do if they find themselves in forced servitude.

But posters are not enough.

“We know what human trafficking is,” says the police chief of Benapole. “What we need is a place to put the survivors. We need to be better in identifying traffickers, and we need all authorities to ask basic questions to determine if someone is a victim or not.”

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The head of the Border Guard Bangladesh had some disturbing news about child trafficking out of the country today. Major General Anwar Hussain said that young women and girls are being smuggled into India by their “pimps” who masquerade themselves as honeymooners.

The traffickers are using this method in an attempt to cross borders without drawing attention. Many of the trafficking victims were from poverty-stricken backgrounds and were searching for a future with more opportunities than they might find at home. This is why they go willingly with traffickers.The problem is, they don’t know what is really waiting for them on the other side.

In the past three months, the Border Guard has rescued 70 women and girls from border regions. Many of the girls had fallen into the traffickers’ clutches through false promises of job offers from abroad, the Deccan Herald reports. Other common causes include domestic violence, false tourism and marriage offers.

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Photo: Groundreporter/FlickrThe traffickers pay the families for allowing their children to be taken away, but often exploit the children like slaves (file photo)

Some 190 cases have been reported in the province in the first two months of 2012, according to Zia Ahmed Awan, chairperson of Madadgaar Helpline, an NGO helping women and child victims of abuse and trafficking. In 2011, the NGO recorded 288 cases.

Families receive a payment for allowing their children to be trafficked: Traffickers pick up women and children from villages with the promise of getting them jobs in cities. However, once a certain amount has been paid to the family, the traffickers exploit the woman or child, often treating them as little more than slaves. .

“Most of the victims are from Bangladesh and Afghanistan, where poverty and strife have made it difficult for people to meet their basic needs,” Awan said. “Combine this with illiteracy and unemployment, and you will have people willing to sell their children.” (he is talking about the reported cases here)

“There were 11 of us, and my father really tried hard to provide for us, but we lived in really strict poverty,” Begum said.

Then came a rich man, Stefan Chapman Christopher, who found her father, built him a house, and said he could take the kids and give them an education.

“So what parent would say no to that?” Begum said.

Her father gave up his children for their chance in the land of opportunity.

“So my journey from Bangladesh: we’re excited, we’re going to come to America, get on a plane, never ridden in a car before, all these exciting things,” Begum said. “Well, what was supposed to be a dream come true was my nightmare when I was brought to Oakville, Washington, with nine of my family members.”

She was 4 years old. She had an 11-year-old sister that was forced to marry the man.

“We were tortured,” Begum said. “We lived in a farm, this man ran a farm, used us all as slaves, for quite a few years. Not only were we forced to get up and work all day and night, no electricity, hardly any food … now it’s a very rural area, it’s safe, people go where they need to go, they come home and they bury their head in their own mind and their own business and their own home.”

Begum and her siblings were tortured, beaten, raped and emotionally abused.

“We were scared to go anywhere and look at people in the eye,” she said.

Begum and her family were saved when her 14-year-old cousin committed suicide. That’s when law enforcement got involved.

“Many of you have children; can you imagine? A 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-year-old, 12-year-old being raped and beaten,” Begum.

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Thirty-two Bangladeshi victims of human trafficking of labour exploitation will be the first group to take up employment here under the government’s policy on human trafficking victims.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Lee Chee Leong said the first group would be released Wednesday from the shelter home to take up employment in Malaysia for a three year period.

He said the policy decision was announced by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein on the sidelines of the Bali Process Workshop on Protection of Victims of Trafficking in Persons that Malaysia jointly hosted with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 12.

“To provide better protection for victims of human trafficking, the government announced a major policy decision allowing the victims for labour exploitation cases to work in Malaysia upon their release from the shelter homes,” Lee said in a statement on Wednesday.